By Pawas Verma
Gandhi Nagar, one of the major constituencies in Phase 5 is watching out for prepotent Bhalla’s hesitant hat trick this year. A tough brawl is to be witnessed between the heavyweight Raman Bhalla who, if comes into power this time, would complete his hat trick, and an equally competitive BJP face, Kavinder Gupta.
Gandhi Nagar has an account of over 160000 voters and their faith in the dynamic leadership of Raman Bhalla is all set for the third dive this year. With over 62000 Sikh voters in the constituency- in regions of Nanak Nagar, Satwari and Digiana– the rivals of Bhalla have deployed Sikh candidates to muster the maximum votes or to at least shake his share of account. JKPDP has nominated Amrik Singh in the fray, NC has fielded Surinder Singh and BSP has put up Ravinder Singh to give him a tough beat. The parties are positively counting on the sikh vote bank for their win in the region.
But of all these faces the major competition to Bhalla comes from Kavinder Gupta of the Bharatiya Janata Party who might hit the seat because of the heated modi magic in the Jammu region. With the modi wave engulfing the whole of Jammu immensely, people are downrightly counting on the BJP candidates and are ready to pave way for this bright face of BJP.
Areas of Sainik Colony and Greater Kailash have a sizeable amount of former soldiers residing and Modi’s pension stand has already wooed them enough to prefer BJP. Besides nearly 8,000 Muslims spread in different parts of Trikuta Nagar, Chani Himmat and Gandhi Nagar localities, there is also a significant number of Hindu Mahajan trading community counting on BJP.
The Congress suffered a fierce jolt in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in the constituency which witnessed the victory of BJP’s Jugal Kishore leaving Madan Lal Sharma of Congress, far behind with a margin of 38,000 votes, clearly signifying the BJP influence in the region.
Despite Bhalla’s immense popularity in the region , he is evidently facing the toughest challenge of his political career with Kavinder Gupta countering him.
YOU MAY LIKE OUR VIDEO – MEET YOUR NETA: RAMAN BHALLA
